1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the display of data available over a network. More particularly, the invention provides for the integrated display of at least one item of public data and at least one item of private data.
2. Background of the Prior Art
The Internet, which comprises a vast array of computer networks distributed throughout the world, provides online service subscribers with an almost limitless supply of information. Some of this information is public, and some is private. As used herein, public information refers to data, applications, and other such information which is equally accessible by all or substantially all users of a public network. Private information refers to information which is accessible by less than substantially all users, namely by one or more authorized parties, and usually requires a user to verify his or her identity in some way (e.g., by supplying a user name and password). Public information includes, for example, the weather in Tokyo as offered by a weather information website, the price of airfares from New York to London as provided by a travel related site, and other such information. Private information includes, for example, bank account records, 401k account information, and credit card balance information. Such information is typically accessible via an appropriate financial institution, bank and/or credit card website.
Information on the Internet can also be classified as either internal or external. Internal information includes that information which is provided by a company, through a website (or other network protocol), that is proprietary to that company. External information is information that is accessible from websites other than the website of the particular company. For example, if a user visits the site of her bank and accesses various account information, she is accessing internal information. If she then wishes to check the Dow Jones Industrial Average Stock Index on a page that is not a part of the bank's website, she will be accessing external information. Any one company may include multiple internal content providers. For example, one provider within the company may provide retirement account information, another may provide mutual fund account information, and a third may provide credit card balances and a method for paying balances on the Internet.
Known systems for acquiring and displaying information are unsatisfactory in a number of respects. For example, prior art systems do not sufficiently allow an individual to access and view both public and private data simultaneously. That is, viewing combinations of public and private data usually includes jumping between two or more websites, viewing only one at a time, or using two separate digital viewing devices, such as two computer screens. While some systems integrate public and private data on one screen, these systems are limited. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,542 describes a system for ordering items from an electronic catalogue. The system of the '542 Patent does allow a user to simultaneously view items in a catalogue (public data) and an order form including purchase information (private data). Moreover, the system remains static until updated by the user and is not interactively linked to the utilities or interactive services of the catalogue business or other entities, such as business partners of the catalogue business. In other words, the system usually includes the user inputting all of the private information that she then views in her order form. Thus, private information from the company's data stores is not made automatically available to the user.
Furthermore, with the proliferation of Internet use, systems have been described which track and process user preferences so that Internet service providers (ISPs) can customize user experiences or target marketing efforts to users with specified preferences. An example of target marketing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,946, the target marketing contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. Additionally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,848,396 and 5,991,735 owned by Freedom of Information, Inc. and Be Free, Inc., respectively, generally disclose a computer network for providing targeting of appropriate audiences based on psychographic or behavioral profiles of the end users, and are herein incorporated by reference. To track user preferences, some prior art systems create user profiles based on direct input by the user or on an automatic analysis of the websites accessed by the user Known systems, however, do not typically automatically track both private and public data, accessed by a user, to create a user profile. Some existing systems create user profiles based on a user's consumption of public electronic data, while other existing systems create profiles based on private data manually input by the user. A system is needed that combines the two types of data to create profiles while automatically adding pre-existing data from proprietary databases. Additionally, prior art systems do not allow a company or other entity to combine proprietary data, from one or more internal content providers, and user preferences of public data as variable input to business rules to create unique, individually tailored services containing both public and private elements.
Thus, a need exists for systems that allow a user to simultaneously access and view public and private data on the same network interface device or system, such as a web page, wireless screen, other digital viewing device or printer. There is also a need for a system that automatically tracks user preferences, based on the public and private data accessed by the user and on data from one or more internal content provider data stores. Finally, a need exists for a system that allows a company to use automatically derived user preference data to personalize the user's experience on the company's website.